Saturday, June 13, 2015

Doherty also affirmed one of the Sad Puppies core principles: that sci-fi and fantasy publishers should neither promote nor exclude any particular political worldview. We seek out and publish a diverse and wide ranging group of books. We are in the business of finding great stories and promoting literature and are not about promoting a political agenda

That may sound uncontroversial, but prior to the Sad Puppies, it was a principle that was under genuine threat, with astonishing reports of political intolerance to non-progressive authors at sci-fi conventions. Doherty’s blunt affirmation that Tor is in the business of publishing good authors, not politically homogeneous authors, is therefore important.

For the left-wing authoritarians of sci-fi, who previously seemed able to exclude whoever they want from the community, Doherty’s words came as a serious setback. Tor Books was once perceived to be in the grip of hard-line progressives and identity warriors, but now some angry social justice warriors are even threatening to boycott the company.

Naturally, Gawker was also upset.

But such opinions represent an ever-dwindling minority. Everywhere we look, the authoritarian left is on the retreat. As I predicted in January, a chorus of liberal voices has risen to condemn their behaviour. On social media, in tech and on the campus, ostensibly liberal and left-leaning commentators are busy condemning the extremists of their own tribe.

Meanwhile, campaigns like GamerGate and the Sad Puppies are routing them in the culture wars. As in so many other cultural arenas, the SJWs of sci-fi are long past their heyday. And much of that decline can be attributed to the Sad Puppies themselves.

We are admittedly making some minor, if encouraging, dents in the ongoing SJW onslaught. But while we should be encouraged, we should not be complacent or think that what we have accomplished will not be undone in a heartbeat if we stop paying attention and slip back into pushover mode.

And while it's great to see the Publisher at the largest SF/F publishing house disavowing the SJW thought-policing in which some of Tor's editors have engaged for the last decade or more, that doesn't mean that he is absolved of the need to get his house in order. I have heard, from different sources this time, that Tor Books is very much concerned about the prospect of a boycott, particularly one that is supported by SF/F authors.

Which is interesting, because so far they have been unwilling to do the one thing that will end the matter. Indeed, Tor Books appears to have decided to stand by the broad spectrum insults of its Creative Director and its Associate Publisher. So, let's see what Macmillan will do. And if they won't do anything either, well, at least we will know that we gave them every chance to avoid what they apparently wish to avoid.

The key to Tor's intransigence is their belief that the "thousands of emails" they have received are from "bots". This is the same narrative #GamerGate has encountered to attempt to minimize its numbers. Therefore, we will need to find a way to demonstrate to Macmillan that those "thousands of emails" represent "thousands of bookbuyers".

UPDATE: Aaron and JJ at File 770 are convinced that we don't matter.

I don’t think the Puppies realize that they could boycott Tor and Macmillan forever and neither of the companies would ever notice.

Yeah, I was laughing so hard at the comments on the Tor Gallo post that I was almost in tears. The idea that the Puppies (who for the most part, are not huge Tor book-buyers, anyway) think that they are a large enough group to be of any importance to a large publisher — well, it makes me feel a bit sorry for them when they find out that their perceived reality of grandeur is, in fact, merely a delusion of grandeur.

Perhaps not. Although I note that no one at Tor Books appears to be laughing; they even seem to believe they have suffered huge damage to their reputation. Regardless, there is only one way to find out.

UPDATE 2: Then again, perhaps the companies have already noticed. There may be more going on than meets the public eye. Peter Grant has heard from someone at Tor:

Let's just say that if the information provided so far is correct, there appears to be a fair amount of sturm und drang in Tor's upper echelons right now, and things are being shaken up to a considerable degree.

123 Comments:

One of the more interesting things I have seen the last few months is that large corporations are going out of their way to cut off chunks of their customer base.

Tor, Starbucks, and a host of others have people saying to paying customers "We hate you!"

That doesn't work long term. It might if you are a niche market, like the lesbian book store in Madison, Wisconsin that almost had a fit when I walked in the door, but if you are trying to supply to the most people, it can't.

Even here, in occupied Iowa, people are starting to turn on Starbucks because it is to "divisive".

Even here, in occupied Iowa, people are starting to turn on Starbucks because it is to "divisive".

Other than last months idiotic "Let's have a frank and detailed conversation about race during the 45 seconds we have while I pull your coffee or vaguely coffee related milkshake", what's has Starbucks done to make you think they hate you?

People on the right are learning how to strip the left of their ability to create and control the narrative. The days of the learned and tolerated reactionary whose purpose was to ratify the authority of the Left are closing. National Retard and Mr Bow Tie I'm looking at you

Tor, Starbucks, and a host of others have people saying to paying customers "We hate you!"

I admittedly haven't had time to dive deeper into the Starbucks case, but I was a bit baffled by several aspects of it.

Was it some negative marketing campaign? The mistaken assumption that their employee demographic is also their customer demographic? A realignment toward more liberal customers who drink more sugar-heavy products? The left hand not aware of what the right hand was doing?

For a well marketed company like Starbucks, I can't believe they would make such an amateur mistake.

Considering the blog owners string of impressive victories such as getting kicked out of the SFWA, his lawsuit against the SFWA for kicking him out, the release of First Sword so many novembers ago, the release of the First Sword kickstarter, his impressive 6th of 5th place showing at the Hugos last year, and other such accomplishments, I'm not sure why y'all think this "battle" is going to go any different.

Sounds like Tor is close to being hit with boycotts from both sides. Gallo and others have worked hard to piss off non-SJW's and attempts to be neutral piss off the SJW's. This company has wedged itself firmly into a bad place, and it is their own fault. It will be interesting to see if they wiggle out of this fine mess they created for themselves.

Considering the blog owners string of impressive victories such as getting kicked out of the SFWA, his lawsuit against the SFWA for kicking him out, the release of First Sword so many novembers ago, the release of the First Sword kickstarter, his impressive 6th of 5th place showing at the Hugos last year, and other such accomplishments, I'm not sure why y'all think this "battle" is going to go any different.

Because this is not his personal battle. VD is a leader and most certainly a visible (controversial?) figurehead in this small corner of the culture war, but he's not alone by an y stretch of the imagination. The tide is turning. It may be slower than we'd prefer, but it is turning.

The whole Godfrey thing. Do you really think that just because he is making fun of you that someone isn't going to pursue just that line of reasoning in a legal suit and win. If a man can cut off his dick and declare himself a woman, someone can sure as hell claim they are a black trapped in a white body. It is classic and hilarious and indefensibly oppressive under current SJW dogma. Thus the narrative. And yes Vox loves stirring shit up because when he does, CATS get kicked.

Because this is not his personal battle. VD is a leader and most certainly a visible (controversial?) figurehead in this small corner of the culture war, but he's not alone by an y stretch of the imagination. The tide is turning. It may be slower than we'd prefer, but it is turning.

If Vox could play well with others, he'd be so Alpha he'd make Mustafa Mond look like a trashman. As it is, he's set up to be an awesome Kappa when he gets older.

As for the Tor thing and the general run of the culture wars, keep in mind that you have to start somewhere. Two years ago, people weren't even trying to fight the SJWs. Now resistance is stiffening all over the place. One can only hope the SJWs take the hint and back off before they end up provoking a real shooting war.

" The one where everyone who is politically at odds with you is a dumb jock and/or a troll who doesn't believe what they say."That's interesting, considering I don't consider him either of those things. A jock, sure, his frequent posts on his stirring accomplishments in soccer are enough to show that. He's also admitted to trolling. However, I don't believe he's dumb or doesn't believe in what he says.

As for "politically at odd with me", that's a lot of assumptions you make.

The race thing was pretty big. Iowa City is a liberal bastion, and a very segregated one. They didn't want a conversation about race. They want the conversation to be limited to how well the player is on the field or court. It always amazes me how un diverse IC is. Here, in my small little town outside the Quad Cities, we have rednecks and odd balls from all over the world (Yes, there are Chinese and Filipino rednecks). In Iowa City, the part of the town where the hospital and university workers live is whiter than rice in a snow storm.

Honestly, another was the stand by the local managers to ban concealed carry. CCW was approved by a Democrat governor, and many true blue Dems love to carry here. Having a shop say "no" means they will move to a local vendor. Ties in with the "conversation about race".

For the non Dem customers, being told constantly that they are bad for not supporting gay marriage, gun bans, or $15 minimum wage (which would close most Starbucks) means you go to the local chain, with better coffee.

It has been rather interesting. I spent a good part of last summer in Iowa City while my daughter was in the NICU. Starbucks was making people made then, and they are do it more now. Where I live, about 60 miles east, the local brands are better, cheaper, and not served by angry liberal arts graduates. They also blend it with a local beer, so I can get my two vices at once. I know of two Starbucks that have closed to be replaced by either Caribou coffee or a local brand.

I don't see any improvement in the atmosphere, where it counts.The real control points of economic and public policy, are in corporate and bureaucratic management and in the gate keeping institutions to these roles. These all have been getting more PC and from where I sit, in the Fortune 500, the trend is still accelerating. It used to be that a manager could ignore this stuff and do his job, but over the last couple of years it has been increasingly necessary to be an active participant. It's now a necessary part of the bureaucratic game, in institutions with expanding bureaucracies.I don't see gamers or SF readers helping. The true limit will be forced by the failure of these institutions as the bureaucratic overhead makes them ineffective. But that will happen in the context of very poor general economic conditions.More encouraging than gamers and the like is economic stresses on universities, the gatekeepers, where the economy is beginning to intrude. So far this is being partly masked by various government subsidies and foreign students, but there are limits to both, and I think they have been reached.We shall see I suppose.

I don't see any improvement in the atmosphere, where it counts.The real control points of economic and public policy, are in corporate and bureaucratic management and in the gate keeping institutions to these roles. These all have been getting more PC and from where I sit, in the Fortune 500, the trend is still accelerating. It used to be that a manager could ignore this stuff and do his job, but over the last couple of years it has been increasingly necessary to be an active participant. It's now a necessary part of the bureaucratic game, in institutions with expanding bureaucracies.I don't see gamers or SF readers helping. The true limit will be forced by the failure of these institutions as the bureaucratic overhead makes them ineffective. But that will happen in the context of very poor general economic conditions.More encouraging than gamers and the like is economic stresses on universities, the gatekeepers, where the economy is beginning to intrude. So far this is being partly masked by various government subsidies and foreign students, but there are limits to both, and I think they have been reached.We shall see I suppose.

That's interesting, considering I don't consider him either of those things. A jock, sure, his frequent posts on his stirring accomplishments in soccer are enough to show that. He's also admitted to trolling. However, I don't believe he's dumb or doesn't believe in what he says.

So you just happen to hang around a guy's blog who you think 'isn't dumb' and is being earnest, and the only thing you care to do is try to harp on perceived failings?

Either you're a vile person (who else would do that to someone whom they thought earnest and not dumb?), or you're lying.

As for "politically at odd with me", that's a lot of assumptions you make.

Obvious June 13, 2015 10:30 AM"As for "politically at odd with me", that's a lot of assumptions you make."

So you're either a liar (my money would be on that one)

OR

you're the asshole that shows up at parties where you HEARD about it, but no one actually invited you. Everyone rolls their eyes at your arrival and is glad to see you leave. You annoy everyone by being an asshole and insulting everyone and use "I'M JUST KIDDING!" and this it excuses your assholery.

It is shocking, but I've found over the years to look very closely at what people do and discard almost entirely what they say.

And what they do--the latest U.S. Census Bureau maps of American cities by race is the best source to see this and show others--is live as far apart from others as possible. In fact, many U.S. cities are more segregated by race now than they were back when private segregation was legal.

@Obvious

I've heard liberal-left claims of imminent victory for more than 40 years. And, it's true, the spirit of the age is with you and the left is generally victorious. But there is more going on here than you realize. As we used to say back in the old days, we need to heighten the contradictions inherent in the ruling ideology to show its bankruptcy and open the minds of the masses to revolutionary possibility.

This is exactly what is happening right now, if not in the direction socialists thought.

Look at the news: the latest crises now come not weekly, but thrice-daily. The ruling class is now well-known to be not only traitorous but, worse, incompetent. People's lives have become unbearable to the point were more than a third are on anti-depressants/anti-anxiety medications. The U.S. Government cannot perform the most basic of tasks. Somalis agitate for beheading Christians in Minnesota while Liberian tribes fight in the streets of Fargo.

We are entering a revolutionary period. You may want to take a strong look around you and make sure the people you think are your allies actually are. Hint: if they're women, blacks, asians, homosexuals, jews, latinos, you're just a useful tool.

You see, obviously white man: they hate you too. They've just decided to kill you last.

(There are other great non-SJW sci fi authors, and I apologize for not including them here. But the list is getting longer every month...and that is another reason why the SJW's aren't going to win in the sci fi arena. Got it, Oblivious? We don't care, you idiot.)

"One can only hope the SJWs take the hint and back off before they end up provoking a real shooting war."

I do so hope that they don't.

Which would be best in life:

1. The SJWs at Tor (we've seen no evidence so far that the place isn't SJWs from top to bottom) regretfully accept Ms. Gallo's resignation, and go on doing business as usual while she's quietly given a job at some other SJW redoubt that's not directly involved with publishing so no one cares.

2. Half the people at Tor fire the other half. The latter group stages a coup (at stapler point, I guess, since they wouldn't own any guns); piles up all the books on hand from Card, Wright, Wolfe, and any other authors admired by badthinkers; sets them on fire while chanting "Social justice forever!"; and makes the former group march in circles around the bonfire wearing their underpants on their heads.

Salt - "Word! One thing I have learned over my years is that contracts can be broken."

There's a Tor author that might learn that one day too.... bbwwwwwwahahahhahah

Anyway. The tide is turning, so the sjw leadership move is to rollover, play nice, make some token (wink, wink) chastisement for public(see we did this adult looking thingy) consumption - while they plan another burn.

Get into this now, get into this to change the tide and determine to make it a tsunami. Commit damnit. The culture war should be fought to unconditional - shut up and rot we never want to hear your petulant child tantrums & loud rhetorical garbage again surrender (most people just call that growing up, but hey). Take your feelbad rags, fill it with Doritos, tie it to a stick & get on down the road. Or at least take out the trash without your parents asking again, gosh sakes, you're pushing 30.

Panera Bread, where I live, doesn't have the "No Berreta 92's" sign posted. The local mall does, but the security guards don't enforce it. Honestly I typically go in through the book store, and didn't know it was posted for years until I walked in through the food court one day. The guard saw me, walked over, and said "You have been coming here for years, don't worry about it".

The Iowa City mall is much more strict, and just had a fatal shooting last night by a fired security guard.

And yes, my daughter is doing well. My brides water broke at 15 weeks, and she was born at 33 weeks. Our doc was great, and refused to abort (which is the standard "treatment' with PPROM). My bride was on bed rest for four months till my daughter was born, and then my little bear spent 62 days in the NICU. A very moving and intense experience.

[O]ver the last couple of years it has been increasingly necessary to be an active participant.

That's the hallmark of communist societies (which is what SJW's are). You are required not merely to "tolerate" homosexuality, transgender mental illness, feminist man-hatred, and SWJ white-hatred...you must celebrate it as you participate in self-destruction. This is what SJW's demand.

Gamergate and Rabid Puppies have created a vaccine! It also serves as a powerful counterpunch that protects from and defeats the evil SJW plague.

There's a common theme among the Puppies. "I used to read SFF, but as the stories started to suck, I left the genre. Now, thanks to X, I'm back and I want to make sure that stories I like are recognized." (X might be a specific author or publishing house.) That departure was noticed as early as 2005 or so when Kristine Kathryn Rusch wrote her article noticing that print SFF was doing a horrible job capitalizing on the successes of SFF in other genres. The real question isn't will Tor notice a Puppy boycott, it's whether Puppykickers, SJWs, and their fellow travelers are a large enough market to support the New York print SFF establishment. Because it is obvious that a genre that has sold only 17 million books, often to the same people, has been rejected by the greater society.

The horns of the dilemma for TOR is that an Author's boycott would damage them long term. TOR today is what Del Rey was in the 1980s. Prestige is externally bestowed. The authors are the ones who grant it. So they don't want to lose that.

But an SJW strike is an indeterminate but presumably large chunk of their core audience. So they don't want to lose that.

Of course the real problem is TOR;s management. One art director shooting off her mouth on Facebook, was just an eyebrow lifter. Moshe Feder shooting off his after she had offered her non-apology was a jaw dropper.

Interestingly, Moshe Feder is now disassociating himself from TOR books.

SFWA et. al. made permanent enemies from people who simply disagreed with their intellectual opinions on matters.

Obvious, do you really (honestly) think the people manning the walls of Pink SF are disciplined, crafty, mentally prepared, and cohesive enough to sustain permanent, effective defense? Anyone with any experience dealing with the personalities of the Left creative types know they are ticking time bombs of self-destruction. The more "passionate," the greater the collateral damage and chance of friendly fire.

"Interestingly, Moshe Feder is now disassociating himself from TOR books."

Hopefully permanently. Gallo's comment wasn't what sparked my personal boycott of Tor, but Feder's comments this year. Actually, come to thing of it, there was a Moshe writing for Tor.com years ago that threw such a fit about equality in D&D artwork, complete with Scalzi-esque banhammering of anyone who diagreed with him, minorities included, that I left the site in disgust. I wonder if it's the same Moshe. I'd check, but that means going back to Tor.com and I'd really rather get a root canal.

VD: 'Therefore, we will need to find a way to demonstrate to Macmillan that those "thousands of emails" represent "thousands of bookbuyers".'

The easy way to do this is to send dead tree mail.

My wife and I waged a PR war against a major health insurer, using real paper letters to the various members of the company's board, and a variety of medical foundations that support research for my wife's condition. It took less than 24 hours from the time they received the mail for our bills to be paid in a satisfactory manner.

Paper is tangible, and "expensive" (relatively). It is much harder to write software that will fake such letters, especially the postmarks on the envelopes. And, while paper is not as significant as it once was, it still carries far more impact than electrons.

It represents extra time, effort, and expenditure that email does not convey. And, a well written and formatted paper letter represents someone who is affluent, educated, and willing to spend money for the things he wants -- all of which are hugely significant to those that, at least in theory, would like to get some of the money being spent.

Yeah, I was laughing so hard at the comments on the Tor Gallo post that I was almost in tears. The idea that the Puppies (who for the most part, are not huge Tor book-buyers, anyway) think that they are a large enough group to be of any importance to a large publisher

like the lesbian book store in Madison, Wisconsin that almost had a fit when I walked in the door,

The secret of gay & lesbian book stores is nothing in the front is ever sold. I think I am the only person to have ever bought something from the front of the store. The back of the stores are adult book stores & toys.

Because you are losing control of the narrative and will not be able to gain it back again.

You can chose to love women or understand them, but you can't go back from the latter. Once people realize they have never meet a black in real life AS SMART AS SEEN ON TV, they will never again say Not All Blacks Are Like That.

"What narrative?" That felony convictions from 9 months prior and robbing a liquor store while beating up its Asian clerk on video 10 min prior don't break the narrative that Mike Brown was an inne cent future professor doctor rocket surgeon who did nothing wrong..

One can only hope the SJWs take the hint and back off before they end up provoking a real shooting war.

Lets hope they don't take the hint or I have moved out of a die verse city for nothing.

I don't see any improvement in the atmosphere, where it counts.

Its like the Epic Beard Man video where after the thug fails to sucker punch Epic Beard Man he starts crying for EBM to stop hitting him. EBM knew better than to listen to someone who was willing to sucker punch him https://search.yahoo.com/search;_ylt=AwrBT8bKRnxVcs8AfC1XNyoA?p=epic+beard+man&fr2=sb-top&fr=yfp-t-901&fp=1

You are required not merely to "tolerate" homosexuality, transgender mental illness, feminist man-hatred

10 years ago no one would have believed gays would have shotgun weddings, now they are pointing shot guns at the cake bakers.

I'll be driving through Marxison this week and would love to see a fit if I walked in to the lesbian store. Where in Madison is it?

Remember to ask " Isn't that supposed to be GLBT" lesbians get triggered by not having the L first. Meet the dyke that probably violated the hippa law to expose the 14yo Druggar boy while the left calls 20+yo kids. I wish they gave as much coverage to when Congressman (D) Menendez got caught with 14yo hookers in the DR as what Druggar did when he was 14.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3120768/The-downfall-Duggars-hate-filled-robocall-photo-lesbian-kiss-exposed-dark-family-secrets.html Protesting against the rape of little indigenous white girls by savage moslems banned in UKhttp://www.sheffieldtelegraph.co.uk/news/local/exclusive-police-and-council-move-to-ban-rotherham-abuse-protests-1-7275252

If you where a hugo award winning story my love, The hugo award winning story about writing a hugo award winning story. Before CHORFs claim its not sci fi note the temporal paradox.

It was downtown by the Doubletree hotel area. Can't remember the street, but was something like the "Three Sisters" store. They had a decent history section, but most of the store was dedicated to lesbian love.

I honestly didn't see the signs before I walked in, as I was looking for a local book store. I ended up buying a history of the Reconquest of Spain, which made the clerk all sorts of confused.

"But such opinions represent an ever-dwindling minority. Everywhere we look, the authoritarian left is on the retreat."

Nah. It's just that a few people -- largely individuals and not groups -- have exposed the totalitarianism at the core of modern leftist and (anti)progressiveness.

The group-fascist left isn't in retreat. They rule the Executive, Legislative, and mostly Judicial, right down to your local municipal courts. Don't think so. Go sit in the gallery a few days. You'll get the picture quick.

The left also rules corporate America, media, intelligence, education (K to doctorate), much of medicine, on and on. This is pervasive throughout the West. The self-serving totalitarian mindset does not admit error, and does not retreat. It finds new strategies and tactics to coerce, manipulate, deceive, and 'win'.

"The real control points of economic and public policy, are in corporate and bureaucratic management and in the gate keeping institutions to these roles. These all have been getting more PC and from where I sit, in the Fortune 500, the trend is still accelerating."

This is a good thing. Just as the invasion of SJWs in the SF publishers has driven me away from the big publishing houses to self-published SF authors and small publishers like Castalia that actually want my business, the influx of SJWs throughout Big Business will drive people to small, local businesses who are much more accountable to customers and more beneficial to their local community. If I feel like paying $3 for a coffee, I don't go to Starbucks, I go to one of a couple of local coffee places, where I help keep a real business running rather than hand money to rich shareholders, and they treat me like a customer, rather than lecture me on SJW politics.

The future is smaller and more local, as networking and local manufacturing technologies make big, bloated, politically-braindead corporations obsolete. Most of Big Business is doomed, no matter what they do.

"The left also rules corporate America, media, intelligence, education (K to doctorate), much of medicine, on and on."

That's the funny part. They've spent all this time and effort taking over these big, centralized bureaucracies, just in time for those bureaucracies to become obsolete.

Big Business is a dinosaur, mass media is dying, no sane person wants to send their kids to a state-run school any more, doctoring is about to be devastated by medical engineering.

And, without the power of those bureaucracies to do their will, SJWs will be reduced to those crazy old ladies pushing shopping carts down the street and rambling about how you're raping them whenever you look at them.

51. VFM bot #188 "[O]ver the last couple of years it has been increasingly necessary to be an active participant."

That's the hallmark of communist societies (which is what SJW's are). You are required not merely to "tolerate" homosexuality, transgender mental illness, feminist man-hatred, and SWJ white-hatred...you must celebrate it as you participate in self-destruction. This is what SJW's demand.

Gamergate and Rabid Puppies have created a vaccine! It also serves as a powerful counterpunch that protects from and defeats the evil SJW plague.

Like many vaccines, in retrospect it seems so simple....

We don't care, you SJW assholes.==============

If I have the history right, the SJW Vaccine was developed at Dr. Nate's secret underground laboratory after years of working with some of the most toxic and virulent memes ever unleashed on planet Earth. It was then deployed globally by The Supreme Dark Lord. Credit where credit is due.

I live in NYC. I'm thinking of going through all my books, find the few by Tor, and show up at their office and demand a refund. After all, as a racist, sexist, homophobic neo-nazi, my money is tainted and they should be thrilled to give it back.

From thirty years of watching internal corporate politics and changes. Once upper management has decided to terminate an upper level employee, it may take 6 months to execute the replacement. I suspect that the decision has been made already.

I'm trying to figure out if Obvs has got some weird fascination with VD, or it he is just trying to make himself feelggods by poking at us with a stick. Not that it works, because he only asserts, and repeats his assertions, and never argues, so it's boring to engage him.He doesn't seem to be any of the regular trolls, but then I've only been here a couple of years,

I've been lurking and spot posting for 5 or 6 years now. There always seems to be a rogue "anklebiter" like Oblivious who hangs out for a while and then scurries away when the ilk really start to pay attention.

78. ticticboom "I live in NYC. I'm thinking of going through all my books, find the few by Tor, and show up at their office and demand a refund. After all, as a racist, sexist, homophobic neo-nazi, my money is tainted and they should be thrilled to give it back."

Excellent idea. Bring a friend as witness and be sure to video record it, for entertainment purposes if nothing else. It could also go into the putative documentary. The same thing could also be done at Worldcon.

From thirty years of watching internal corporate politics and changes. Once upper management has decided to terminate an upper level employee, it may take 6 months to execute the replacement. I suspect that the decision has been made already.

Unless the reason for termination is that you're impacting the reputation or recvenue. Then you're normally out on your ass in a heartbeat.

It may be though, that with their team-centric management structure, no-one has the authority to simply dismiss her. There will be some defined process (personnel board must meet and recommend to the management board who must meet and recommend to the directors, etc.). Even if they urgently want to, they probably can't do it in less than a week without inviting a successful lawsuit.

And of course, being a personnel matter, it's against policy to talk about it in any way, especially outside the company.

That's why these situations usually end in a resignation. It's so much faster. All it normally takes is the threat of inevitability. Unless the employee is a sociopathic narcissist. Oh....

When it was just Gamergate or the Hugo kerfuffle, the numbers of SJW's involved and the number of apolitical people affected were fairly small, so few noticed outside their respective communities.

Tor Books made the huge mistake of engaging a much larger audience when Irene Gallo, the publisher's creative director, started attacking her own authors and the buying public, rapidly expanding the circle of people who suddenly realized they were also targets in the eyes of the SJW's.

Ellen Pao expanded the circle of engagement to encompass millions of people who used Reddit. The SJWs were able to get away with their hate filled campaigns for a long time because they targeted small and isolated communities of people or individuals who may have felt powerless to respond. Now instead of small communities of marginalized people, they are facing an enraged crowd, which has spontaniously organized against them, and id fighting back using economic boycotts and shining cold hard light on their actions and their beliefs. No wonder the SJW's are reeling.

However, now is not the time to stop. The "Long March through the institutions" has given the SJW's power in the Bureaucracies, the Judiciary, the Legislature and Academia, and they will fight to the last taxpayer to maintian their power and privilege. We need to remember Winston Churchill's speech of 4 June 1940, and follow his advice:

"Even though large tracts of Europe and many old and famous States have fallen or may fall into the grip of the Gestapo and all the odious apparatus of Nazi rule, we shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be. We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender, and if, which I do not for a moment believe, this island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God's good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old."

#87, again, while I appreciate the flattery, the blog owner has never actually threatened me with the cops. Frankly, he hasn't done much threatening at all, just muttered that it'd be in my best interests to stop "cyber stalking" him. Whatever the hell that means.

In Unix, every file has a set of permissions: r(ead) w(rite) (e)x(ecute) for the owner , rwx for the group, and rwx for the world. If you do a long listing on a file: "ls -l file.txt", the output will look approximately like this:

_rwxrwxrwx file.txt

The preceding dash is for special files like directories. Without burrowing too deep into the weeds, you can change the file permissions on a file using binary bit manipulation (the 'r's are represented by 100 base 2 or 4 base 10; the 'w's by 10 base 2 or 2 base 10; the 'x's by 1 base 2 or 1 base 10):

chmod 770 file.txt

will change the above ls -l listing to this:

_rwxrwx___ file.txt

Final lesson note: if you see an 'r', 'w', or 'x', that means that read, write, or execute permission is granted to the respective owner, group, or world.

So now, what does File 770 mean? The SJW has full permission on his post including deletion, as do all other SJWs (the group), and the world has no permission to see, edit, or delete the post. This is their world. Insular and hateful.

As an aside, an interesting bloke I watch on Youtube goes by the name engineer775. I never thought much of his name other than engineer774 got there first. Now, after seeing File 770, I am quite convinced that engineer775 is expressing HIS file permission (btw, he is an intellgent, soft spoken prepper): He has full permission on his output, as do like minded prepper people, AND the world can watch him, and even join in his executions/attempts, but the world CANNOT edit his ideas (the world can 'r' and 'x', but 'w'). Join the group and then you can 'w too.

"Big, centralized bureaucracies have managed to accomplish some pretty amazing things, like Apollo, Bell Labs, World War 2 victory, etc."

Yes, but those were products of an industrial economy. You need NASA to go to the Moon if you have to organize a hundred thousand people in hundreds of companies to do so. You don't need NASA to go to the Moon if you can print a rocket on a 3D printer in your garage.

SJWs have spent decades taking control of chokepoints in the industrial economy, but that economy is on the way out. As networking replaces hierarchy, and local manufacturing replaces factories in China, there'll be less and less room for big, industrial-era bureaucracies any more. Particularly if they're sclerotic, incompetent bureaucracies run by SJWs.

Just look at the impact ebook self-publishing has had on big publishing houses. Authors can make more money selling their books at lower prices, and no longer have to fight their way past SJW gatekeepers to get published. James Patterson and Stephen King will keep those publishers going for years, but no-one will care what they think otherwise.

That doesn't mean the SJWs' demise is inevitable, but, by trying to tell everyone else what to do, they're fighting against the natural decentralized, networked form of a post-industrial society. That's an enormous disadvantage compared to the industrial era, whose natural form was centralized and hierarchical.

The problem is, in controlling the commanding heights of government and power---legislative, executive, judiciary, bureaucracies, unions, public schools, universities, the old media, Hollywood, TV, etc.---they will take what they want. We don't want or need them? They don't care. They will continue to exercise power and seize what they want. When they control the police, military, and many other ancillary security apparatuses, what are normal non-parasitical people going to be able to do about it?

Print runs for Tor novels typically are 7500-10,000 copies; more for big-namers, but not VASTLY more.

The Hugo nominations demonstrated that the Puppies can mobilize several hundred hard-core followers, willing to spend money on a membership in order to be heard. Do the math: you've already got something like 5 to 10 percent of a book's potential sales. That's enough to hurt.

Add to that the potentially much larger group of Puppy sympathizers who may not want to spend money to support the cause, but who can VERY EASILY decide to NOT spend money on Tor books, and you're looking at a very serious bite.

After all, even if SF readers skew more liberal than the general population, the breakdown is still likely to be around 60% left vs. 40% right. No publisher in his right mind is going to alienate 40% of his customers.

HOWEVER, if you were an ambitious editor at Tor who is getting tired of waiting for Tom to retire so you can get the cool office with a view up Broadway, you might want to gin up a shitstorm and compel your colleagues to "choose sides" as a way to encourage the old man to step down. Then you can take charge and "calm the situation" simply by no longer running inflammatory posts on the company Web site you are in charge of or the blog you and your wife run.

If I have the history right, the SJW Vaccine was developed at Dr. Nate's secret underground laboratory after years of working with some of the most toxic and virulent memes ever unleashed on planet Earth. It was then deployed globally by The Supreme Dark Lord. Credit where credit is due.

All due respect to Nate, but the SJW vaccine was developed two thousand years ago on a cross just outside of Jerusalem. When we bother to take the vaccine, it works pretty well.

You think you can delete my posts and that will get rid of me? Call the cops on me then. Calling your bluff.

Duly noted. We have your IP address. We'll be contacting your Internet provider next week. Once I have your identity, I'll contact your employer and show him evidence of your years of cyberstalking. Perhaps he'll be fine with that, perhaps he won't. If you've been posting here during office hours, I expect you'll have a problem.

And if you don't have a job, then I'll contact the police. There are reasonable cyberstalking laws in your jurisdiction.

I only went to the police with Marston because he didn't have a job... after contacting the director at the place where he volunteers. He didn't think I could find him either.

@ 78 - I'm thinking of going through all my books, find the few by Tor, and show up at their office and demand a refund.

Better still, everyone with Tor titles on their shelf ought to pull them, and advertise them for next to nothing on Craigslist, etc. While I'm sure a few SJWers will take the hit to support their team by purposefully choosing to buy Tor's books for $12.99 or whatever, most people if given the choice, would opt for a good used title for 50 cents.

Corvinus, it should be obvious that Obvious is not Tad. Completely different styles, and Tad never sounds angry. Tad's a master troll; his glibly assured tone while stating blatant counterfactuals is undisguisable.

Obvious presents as a butthurt hurt-butt of little skill or cleverness. No way they're the same.

Part of the problem, though, is the born-yesterdays are responding to him.

Don't. Feed. Trolls.

I certainly see what you're saying (or at least I believe I do). However "feeding the trolls" in the way I've seen it used has only meant falling for their shenanigans and getting upset, not taking their position (whether or not the troll believes them) and decimating it for bystanders to see.

Simply responding isn't the basis for feeding of trolls. Else you'd be accusing Vox of feeding the troll when responding to his bluff-call, and that's just silly.

"Which is interesting, because so far they have been unwilling to do the one thing that will end the matter."

I don't know about you, but sacking Moshe Feder would not satisfy me, even if Bertelsmann were to adopt a statement like Doherty's as company policy. This has gone on too long, and MF is certainly not the only one responsible.

Peter Grant has updated again. Supposedly, Macmillan is starting to take some actions. Some at Tor do believe it's all bots, that there can't be that many upset, etc. Physical letters appear to be the only thing they will believe outside of boycott effects.

Wow, the Tor senior execs really have their head in the sand... As long as they can wave away all criticism with a mention of Vox Day, I don't see how any reconciliation is possible without a Damascus moment on their side. Vox isn't just living rent-free in their heads, he's building his own cities in there.

Maybe they are, maybe they aren't. These execs also know that Disney is making billions and billions of dollars and it is hard-left. With the notable exception of legacy media, the business climate is not exactly punishing companies for being too left-wing.

@ buwaya puti: "The real control points of economic and public policy, are in corporate and bureaucratic management and in the gate keeping institutions to these roles. These all have been getting more PC and from where I sit, in the Fortune 500, the trend is still accelerating. It used to be that a manager could ignore this stuff and do his job, but over the last couple of years it has been increasingly necessary to be an active participant. It's now a necessary part of the bureaucratic game, in institutions with expanding bureaucracies."

That's politics, and politics is downstream of culture. There will be a lag.

the idea that the Puppies .. [could] be of any importance to a large publisher is laughable?

They forget all the people they assume share their world view merely because we are too polite (or too sensible) to get into political fights at work. I'm about done with reviewing Tor titles.

Here's an idea: Offer Tor and the SJW horde an "out" in "l'affaire Gallo." As a gentleman, or perhaps recognizing that she's a "victim" of a corrupt corporate culture... It's just not "fair" to blame her, is it? Of course not. So fire P. Nielsen-Hayden, and it's all good.